


Oh, my love, don't forsake me

by moonflowery



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, Feelings, Immortality, Light Angst, Necklaces, Pre-Canon, Promises, its all good and fun until you remember canon and cry, soft andy is soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25604485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowery/pseuds/moonflowery
Summary: “When I leave, will you spend a thousand years grieving for me?”The moment Quynh gives Andy her necklace. All the fears, all the love, and the promise behind it all.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache the Scythian/Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	Oh, my love, don't forsake me

All things considered, Andy thought, it was a nice day. The sun was shining above them its benevolent light and keeping them warm. The nature around them was all around pleasant and agreeable, keeping them fed and safe. Beside them, a graceful river flowed steadily, and it sated their thirst and refreshed their bodies after many long hours of mindless walking. Other than that and the animals they hunted every so often to share a humble meal, it was just Andy and Quynh. They knew that if they followed the river long enough, odds were they would find… _something_. People. But there was no guarantee nor expectation as to what kind of people and in which living conditions and arrangements they would find them. Or how long it would take to find them. If they would find them at all. But that was how they lived back then.

“You have been quiet,” Quynh told Andy some time mid-afternoon, just as some fresh breeze passed past them, threatening to steal away Quynh’s words if her walking companion didn’t reach out and take them in time.

Andy knew Quynh was right because, for the unending life of her, she couldn’t recall if she had said a single word since waking up. “It’s been a dull day,” Andy replied. Her voice was raspy for the lack of use and she had to clear her throat. Afterward, she could still feel the bitter taste of the lie. Technically though, it wasn’t a lie. Their day so far had felt graceless and unimportant. Andy had lived millions of days just like that one. Had lived, died, fought, loved, hurt on days like that one. But she was aware that _she_ was the one that made this one day dull.

“I meant you have been quiet for the last few _years_.”

“Oh…” Andy frowned. She frowned mostly because she couldn’t fight the accusation. She frowned, too, because she knew what came next.

“Since Lykon’s death.”

At once Andy decided not to give Quynh the chance to continue that gentle attack of hers. “I am grieving,” she replied easily “Aren’t we supposed to?”

“Yes,” Quynh answered softly. After a pause though, she added, “But it’s been decades.”

“Well, he lived a long time,” Andy’s reply was cutting, almost harsh. She could feel the other woman’s eyes searching her face, trying to meet her eyes, but Andy wouldn’t budge.

“So, does that mean that when I-”

“No,” Andy sharply interrupted her, “Please don’t, Quynh.” And at once she started walking faster, running from something inescapable, running from death that wasn’t even hers.

Quynh chased after her. Her voice was strained when she asked, “When I leave, will you spend a thousand years grieving for me?”

“Yes!” Andy exclaimed as she turned around hastily, almost knocking against Quynh. “An _eternity_. I would grieve for you for as long I lived and more and- No! I won’t, because I _can’t_ \- won’t lose you. And we are not talking about this.”

Once again Andy tried to keep walking, at a faster pace, but it was futile. A few strides later it registered that she couldn’t hear Quynh following. She stopped in her tracks and sighed. The idea of this conversation pained her more than dying, for it couldn’t be undone.

“Denial isn’t a good look on you, Andromache.”

“It’s a weakness,” Andy replied automatically. She still had her back turned to her love. “Something I tend to avoid,” she smiled as she said it, content in the knowledge that Quynh most likely could hear and recognize that smirk in her voice.

“Not with me, you don’t have to.”

After some hundreds of years, impressively and almost magically quickly if you were to ask Andy’s opinion, Quynh had mastered the art of understanding Andy better than anybody else had ever done. Better than anybody else ever would. She was an expert at pushing Andy’s buttons in a way that was beautifully merciless. She pushed gently, she pried her open with care and with love, but she never gave up and she never let Andy get away with blocking her out.

“Quynh, _please_.” Andy pleaded, not without being reminded that only for this woman she would.

“Andy we have to talk about what happened.”

Andy turned around and found Quynh was standing still, with her arms crossed, and her beautiful face settled on an unreadable expression. Andy knew she wasn’t getting out of this but, warrior that she was, she wouldn’t go down without a fight. “We _have_ talked about this,” she tried, as she slowly approached Quynh. “I told you, I am confused and I don’t understand it. I told you, I am heartbroken, and I miss him, but I’m glad he got to finally rest.”

The words made Quynh sigh and resume her walking. Somebody else would have assumed she had either accepted those words or her defeat. Andy knew better. She stood still until Quynh caught up with her, grabbed her hand, and gently pulled her forward. They continued walking together, holding hands. Quynh might have wanted to play with Andy’s fingers, to caress the palm of her hand, but Andy grasped her hand tightly, fervently, like a lifeline.

“You didn’t need to tell me those things, Andromache. I knew all of it, I feel the same,” Quynh spoke softly, gently helping Andy open up. “I want you to tell me the things you have been so quiet about.”

“Why?” Andy answered almost mindlessly as she looked down at her hand holding Quynh’s and the way they fit perfectly together.

“I’m all you’ve got,” Quynh replied, “What would you become, Andromache, if you kept your feelings bottled up for hundreds of years?”

A chill ran down Andy’s spine like a bad omen, an epiphany. She shook her head to get rid of the feeling and insisted, “You know me perfectly well, Quynh. I feel you already know whatever you want me to say out loud. Why should I?”

“Because I want to hear it,” this time Quynh’s response was almost playful, like the smile she gave and prompted Andy to mirror with a smile of her own as a natural reflex. “Talking about it helps. When will you ever learn?”

Then Quynh lifted their joined hands up and placed a kiss on Andy’s knuckles. This woman, wise in her understanding and ferocious in battle had shown Andy’s tenderness that she swore would forever be her undoing. “I am _scared_ ,” Andy confessed the very second she felt Quynh’s precious lips on her skin. “I am terrified beyond anything I’ve ever know. Terrified of losing you. Scared of not being ready when my time comes. Scared of you leaving and… scared of me leaving _you_.”

The intensity of her words had forced them to stop walking and to stand still staring at each other. Andy couldn’t understand why Quynh’s eyes were suddenly holding back tears. Didn’t she already know that was exactly what Andy couldn’t shake from her mind the moment they realized Lykon had died? But then it clicked in Andy’s mind. Of course Quynh knew, she told her herself, she felt the same. Of course there were tears in Quynh’s eyes, Andy realized, they were a mirror to her own watery eyes. They fought seamlessly in battle, synchronized, like each other’s shadows, like a reflection. It went far beyond the battlefield too.

“Close your eyes,” Quynh asked, “Close your eyes, Andromache.”

She had dropped Andy’s hand. And Andy, confused as she was about the request and already missing the touch of Quynh’s hand, she complied. She closed her eyes and as she waited for Quynh she worked on steadying her breath, on holding back the tears that wanted to escape, on burying down the weaknesses that she knew she didn’t need to hide. Finally, Quynh picked up her hand again and then very softly said, “Open your eyes.”

As Andy watched, Quynh pulled open the fist of Andy’s hand with the utmost delicacy, and then placed in her open palm her necklace. That very necklace that had been on her neck since the very first day Andy found her. The little object was possibly the most important physical possession Quynh ever had, and she was giving it away. It was monumentally important for Andy as well. Andy, who felt gravity failing her at the magnitude of the moment. It felt impossibly wrong to see Quynh without the necklace, and the necklace anywhere but hanging from Quynh’s neck. She gasped. She couldn’t say any words, but her eyes spoke all her questions for her.

“Because I _need_ you to know that you won’t ever lose me,” Quynh said with as much intention as she was capable of. “Because I love you. Because I am terrified too. I am scared of the person you would be without me, the person I would be without you. Because I need to know that whatever happens, you will keep me with you, forever.”

Andy couldn’t tear her eyes away from the necklace. She closed her fist on it and her knuckles turned white. There was a knot on her throat, she closed her eyes tightly to avoid spilling her tears and her lungs felt like they were burning, but she said, “I promise.”

Quynh’s hand covered Andy’s fist and she pulled her closer, “Do you promise?”

“I promise, I promise,” Andy repeated.

The pressure was too much to bear alone. Simultaneously, they threw their arms around each other, they held each other as tightly as they could. They breathed in together, they cried in unison and they said, “ _I promise, I promise_.”

* * *

As much as Andy liked to joke that she could spend “a thousand years or two” holding Quynh in her arms, eventually they had to let go of each other, and go through their nightly routine. Some time later, with their bellies full and a warm fire in front of them, they laid down to rest. Quynh sat down with her back against the trunk of a fallen tree. Meanwhile, Andy, who always would wind up more tired after displays of strong emotions than physical exertion, she laid down on the ground with her head resting on Quynh’s thighs.

Quynh’s fingers played with Andy’s hair. It wasn’t usual for Andy to completely let down her guard, to lay back and surrender her walls in order to bask in the affection the other woman endlessly gave her. But when she did, it was so easy, it came so naturally, and the feeling was so perfectly divine that it put to rest Andy’s thoughts on life, death, heaven, and hell. Life was worth it as long as she had Quynh with her. Death, even if unescapable, couldn’t scare her much when Quynh was by her side. Heaven was little moments like this, hell was watching Quynh go down during a battle, and heaven was every moment Quynh continued to breathe.

“Tell me about it,” Andy suddenly broke the silence of the night. Since her fingers wouldn’t stop playing with the necklace that now hung around her neck, there was no questioning what she was talking about.

“There is not much I can tell you. If I ever knew anything about it I have forgotten it. I did make the effort to remember I have had it since I was born."

Andy opened her mouth to say something about how she, at first, dreaded taking the symbolic object from Quynh, but now it felt impossibly right, like the missing piece from a puzzle. She felt whole and she couldn’t conceive the idea of ever taking it off. “That’s a long time,” she whispered instead.

Quynh chuckled at that, “Yes.” Her fingers, as if they had a mind of their own, left behind Andy’s hair and slowly traveled down the features of her face. The loving touch, so soothing and intimate, made Andy close her eyes and sigh out of sheer bliss. “It looks good on you,” Quynh pointed out a moment later.

She received a grin from Andy. “Good,” she replied. “I intend to keep both the necklace and you for as long as live.”

“I hope that is true.”

Quynh’s reply, although spoken with a soft smile, carried sadness in the tone and in her very expressive eyes. It was torture for Andy’s heart, the idea of Quynh unhappy or troubled. From the way Andy reacted, quiet and distant, then volatile and resistant, when faced with the reality of Lykon’s death, it said a lot of her pain. But now that the words were out in the open and they had bared their hearts, Quynh’s own pain was move visible, palpable, and jarring.

“It _is_ ,” Andy insisted. She raised from her spot in Quynh’s lap and sat down in front of her. The fire glowing behind her made her look just like the goddess some had believed her to be. “I carry that promise in me,” Andy spoke as one of her hands moved to grasp the necklace again, “I will carry that promise here with me _forever_.”

There would be time to worry, to doubt, and to fear in the many centuries to come. That, however, didn’t mean there wouldn’t be plenty of love, of joy, of moments of absolute happiness together. To prove such a point, Quynh smiled broadly and reached out. She held her necklace on Andy’s neck with her fingers, brushed her thumb over it. Then she tugged on it. Lightly, she tugged on it and Andy smiled as she understood the message and leaned forward. Their lips met in the middle, and they kissed each other in a delightful rhythm that could have gone on for a thousand years more.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!
> 
> title is from what the water gave me by florence and the machine because of course i chose that tragic song to be theirs
> 
> please leave a comment and let me know what you think?
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @afterlaughy and please come talk to me about these two. prompt me to go on long rants about tragic immortal wives


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